7

I need to move some fiber patch cables. As they are "special" compared to cat5, I am hesitant to be anything but very careful when moving them.

How durable are fiber patch cable? Can I treat it like cat5, or do you have to be more careful?

Chadddada
  • 1,670
  • 1
  • 19
  • 26
wd40
  • 115
  • 3

1 Answers1

8

Pretty much don't bend them past 90 degrees under load, pinch them, step on them, or crush them. Fiber has a minimum bending radius and varies between fiber manufactures (check out their documentation on the specific fiber). Fiber has a lower tolerance to pulling tension so you should generally pull it by hand, steadily, and not jerky. For the final install keep the tensile load low. While they are not as tolerant to abuse as a cat5 cable, they are actually fairly resistant to abuse.

Chadddada
  • 1,670
  • 1
  • 19
  • 26
  • 2
    [TIA/EIA-568-B.3 Optical Fiber Cabling Components Standard](http://www.csd.uoc.gr/~hy435/material/TIA-EIA-568-B.3.pdf) - section 4.3 describes expected minimum bend radius, may be helpful. – danlefree Jul 03 '11 at 01:07
  • 2
    I'd replace "90 degrees" with "1 foot diameter turn"... But yeah, they're somewhat resistant to abuse, definitely not as much as Cat5 though. – Chris S Jul 03 '11 at 01:10
  • 1
    @Chris, and whose **foot** is that? ;-D We don't know where @wd40 comes from. – pavium Jul 03 '11 at 02:03
  • This wholly depends on the type of fiber being used. Corning, amongst other vendors, have released some bend resistant fibers that are very difficult to damage. AT&T and Verizon both use this now as their standard cabling within their central offices. The TP76300 Section J-10 provides AT&T's quality requirements for fiber bending radius as 1.5 inches. Verizon's quality document IP72202 defines the bending radius for fiber as the manufacturer standards. Corning states that 25mm or more (1+ inches) provides insignificant attenuation on most fibers. – MaQleod Jul 03 '11 at 03:02
  • @pavium: with a username of wd40 it is likely that he comes from a country with British backgorund, where feet are a universally accepted (and in some places still official) measure of length. – wolfgangsz Jul 04 '11 at 10:29